


What Dreams

by Northland



Category: Anna Dressed in Blood - Kendare Blake
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Yuletide Madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/pseuds/Northland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna doesn’t know what this place is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sadlikeknives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/gifts).



> Warning: here be spoilers for the end of _Girl of Nightmares_.

Anna doesn’t know what this place is. It can’t be the Purgatory the Catholics she knew believed in, because she’s not being punished. Her sins would keep her out of any Heaven that might exist. She’s been to Hell, and this isn’t it. What it feels like is... home, she’d say, if she’d ever had one.

Of course she knows it’s all a dream, or in her head, or some such thing. She remembers what happened in her former life: what her mother did to her, the innocent people she killed, how Cas freed her -- destroying the house that had become her soul’s prison in the process.

Yet here the wooden house feels cozy and welcoming, with Cas to share it. Things aren't perfect. There are rainy days and horseflies. There are seasons, too, because Anna always loved the changing of them, but spring and summer definitely linger longer than they ever did in real-life northern Ontario.

As soon as she realized she wasn't tied to the house the way she was in life, Anna went looking for her victims. Some of them aren’t here; she hopes they’re not somewhere worse. Some of them are, and won’t look at or speak to her. She leaves them notes that say only, _I’m sorry_.

Some of them scream, shout, hit and hate her. Anna stands still and listens. One asks her if she knows what became of his mother after he died. She doesn’t, and that makes her cry into Cas’s shirt later.

“You don’t have to do this,” her Cas says.

Anna knows that; she's starting to think it’s the point of this whole hallucination. “I need to,” she tells him, because it’s the truth and here Anna’s stopped lying, even to herself.

The ones that forgive her are the worst. She doesn’t deserve it. Cas tells her, “No-one does.” He says, “You didn’t deserve what your mother did to you.”

Anna snuffles into his chest. “You’re a good person.”

She can feel his smile against her hair. “And I’m here with you. So what does that mean?” 

As the sun sets Anna sits on the front steps, chin resting on her knees, and thinks about that. She's still not certain, but she's starting to believe that this is meant to be a place where people -- not just her, but anyone who needs it -- can rest. And maybe even heal.

Cas lays a hand on her shoulder. She kisses his floury knuckles. "I made pancakes for dinner," he says. "Come inside." 

Anna takes his hand and stands.


End file.
